The leak of the draft ruling revealing the U.S. Supreme Court’s intention to overturn Roe v. Wade sent shockwaves across the country – including in Los Altos – last week.
Final approval of the draft, expected late next month, would end the decades-long federal right to seek an abortion, a reality that Planned Parenthood Mar Monte spokesperson Andrew Adams said the organization has been preparing for long before the leak.
“Let’s be real,” Adams said, “in November 2016, that’s when we knew the right to an abortion would no longer be secure.”
Because former President Donald Trump appointed three justices to the court – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – his election ultimately created a supermajority on the nine-member court with justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas that could support a conservative ruling even if the sometimes-swing-vote Chief Justice John Roberts breaks ranks.
Vicki Reeder, longtime Los Altos resident and member of the American Association of University Women, agreed that the potential end of Roe v. Wade, though devastating, was not unexpected. The Los Altos-Mountain View chapter of the AAUW has held events supporting the Roe ruling since the 1990s, and Reeder has been involved in the organization since the
1970s.
“I hoped by the time that I’d marched for 50 years that I’d be done,” Reeder told the Town Crier.
Reeder and Adams both expressed concern for the specific language Alito used in drafting the majority opinion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case. If the court’s majority holds, it would rule in favor of Mississippi in its attempt to outlaw most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
“The thing that’s really ominous to me is that this decision by Alito is questioning all of the privacy rights that we have,” Reeder said. “It’s questioning gay marriage, it’s questioning birth control.”
Adams called Alito’s words in the draft opinion “dehumanizing” both for women who seek abortions and for the medical professionals who provide abortion services.
Potential fallout
With more than 20 states set to institute abortion bans if the draft opinion becomes final, according to analysis from NBC News, California is likely to become a destination for women from other states seeking abortions.
“We do anticipate seeing an influx of patients from out of state come to California (to seek abortions),” Adams said, “but the reality is that we’ve actually already experienced this.”
Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, which operates clinics as far south as Bakersfield and as far north as Yuba City – including one in Mountain View – saw double the number of out-of-state patients between last July and April 15 of this year. According to Adams, Planned Parenthood is working to add more clinics and better service near airports and other transportation hubs.
Regardless of which state a patient comes from, Adams said that “it’s really important to understand that Planned Parenthood Mar Monte will provide the care that patients need.”
The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors approved a one-time expense of $3 million to Planned Parenthood Mar Monte the day after the May 2 leak. The funds will primarily be directed to a facility on Tully Road and the Blossom Hill Health Center in San Jose.
In addition to the county’s investment in Planned Parenthood, a package of a dozen abortion rights bills is making its way through the California State Legislature. Among the measures under consideration are providing funding for travel to help women from out of state seek abortions in California, developing a statewide-clearinghouse website for information on how to locate an abortion clinic and passing legislation that would allow independent nurse practitioners to provide abortion services as a “reproductive health service
corps.”
